Beyond the Meadow.

A few miles up Highway 1, just north of Santa Cruz, an unmarked single-lane road winds steeply into the California coastal range, climbing from the misty salt zone of a first marine terrace, through the agricultural flats of a second and on up to a third, whose archipelago of gently sloping open spaces is creased at irregular intervals by redwood-choked ravines. Wild boar roam free up here, rattlesnakes are routine, and the soil, what there is of it, soaks in high-perching water in the winter, dries out in the summer and rests on layers of oil-impregnated asphalt rock and chalky mudstone. It's a land where poison oak, burr clover and thistles thrive. All in all, not the most obvious spot for a garden, but that's what Stephanie Mills saw when she and her husband, David, bought this 372-acre ocean-view aerie, which they named Laguna Ranch, in 1991. From 1993 to 1995, Mills worked with the grass guru John Greenlee to help tame the invasive weeds that had taken hold after a failed brussels sprouts farm and years of ranching created optimum conditions for these opportunistic pests. ''The idea was to control the thistles and poison oak with grasses,'' she recalls. ''If you plant something, a thistle can't grow in its place.'' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]